The Home Game

The year wasn’t even half done and Perry was breaking into a queen’s house for the second time. Ironic, really, considering all the time he had dedicated to doing the exact opposite. Youth overshadowed by attempts to train him into a useful tool. He hated the place.

Not Reric as a whole, just the sjefholme. Stinking of queen scent the minute you entered the yard. Collar high and shields higher he made for the line of trees nestled against the residential wing. In his time in the big house all the apprentices had used them as ladders to come and go. They must have known, the adult back then. Why they didn’t cut them down he didn’t know.

Not that it would have contained Perry any. He would have gladly broken limbs to get away. Nothing would have stopped him. Just as nothing was aware enough to try now. Corridor window popped open with a wedge of Craft. Invisible to even the most trained eye. Though he doubted any would be trying. Who would expect him to come willingly?

Only a few grains of dirt from the treads in his boots to evidence he was there at all. Solveig had an office just as Irisviel, and probably every ruling queen, did. But Peregrine didn’t bother going there. Instead he made his way silently down the hall to the biggest room of them all. Funny that they gave it to the queen, but called the house the sjef’s home.

It was that stuffy sort of clean he always associated with Solveig. Bleak in decor as she was in person. At least to Peregrine, who liked the homeliness of bare wood walls and knitted blankets. He went through the door to keep from drawing attention. Watchful as he entered the room, not sure if she was inside or still downstairs. Hopefully she was at dinner a bit longer. He wanted time to lounge on her bed and mentally rehearse his various argument. An acre, that was all he needed. And he had the marks to pay.

Solveig was already planning next weeks schedule as she climbed the stairs. List in her hand reviewed as she went, she hardly even looked up. Years of habitation moving her down hallways and around corners with ease. She only paused to lay flat a rise in the rug. Craft chasing the length of it smooth once she’d pressed the hump out with the toe of her boot.

She was very nearly done with the days work. Just a few more reports to read, but she’d saved those for last, to read from the comfort of her room. Padded chair and small desk the compromise she and her court had come to. They seemed to be under the impression she would work all night if she had a full desk and less comfortable chair in her room.

Solveig had been planning a relaxing evening in her room. But Mother Night had other plans.

”You’re not.” She said, standing in the doorway, fingers hanging from the knob. He was though. Of course he was. Peregrine the Runner. With his damned boots on her quilt. ”Get your boots, and your body, off of my bed, Peregrine.” Solly finished coming in then, but she did not close the door behind her. Privacy was not something she yearned for when dealing with Peregrine. Especially not in her bedroom.

”Is using the front door and my office really so hard?” She questioned while wiping flecks of dried mud from the patchwork quilt. It was no family heirloom but Solveig rather liked it. It was pretty, with its bold colors and clockwork pattern. Not confusing or disordered like many quilts could be. Once her bed was clean again, she took a moment to look over the warlord who’d blown a crater nearly a mile wide.

He looked as smug as he always did. Solveig sighed. ”What do you want, Peregrine?” He must have wanted something. It was the only reason he would come here, she knew, which was why she didn’t ask. Just like she didn’t ask how he’d gotten in. He would find ways. New ones every time if she tried stopping him.

”Well hello to you too, Solly.” Peregrine said flatly. Looking up from his sketchbook with low lids. If he drew people he would have taken a whack at Solveig just to see if she froze the page. Frigid little bitch. Legs swinging over he sat on the bed instead of laid. Book vanishing from between his hands in the same motion.

Elbow to knee he templed his fingers. Smirk a force of habit rather than from any actual amusement. ”Yes. I spent years trying to get out of the front door. Remember? I’d rather my own way, so I know I can leave when I’m done.” No escorts or guards on high alert. Hovering his every footfall and waiting for a chance to try their hand at binding him. Maybe it hadn’t all been Solveig’s fault but the hurt and anxiety had blended the entire experience into one bitter memory.

Sometimes he couldn’t look his own mother in the face knowing she let them come for him again and again without interfering. What she could have done he didn’t know, but a tear or two at least would have been nice.

For a moment his lips pursed into a thoughtful pucker. Twisting towards one cheek while he tried to make up his mind. If he laid it all on the table now she would know exactly what he hoped for and could more easily say no. ”Kite wants a market stall, so we need a permit for that. I can pay. I want the papers to apply for refugee status for a friend of mine too. She’s a queen from Dena Nehele, and she wants to leave but I have a feeling they won’t like it. Guess I’ll need the wood and land to keep Kite’s stall stocked and keep the girl housed too, so… I don’t know… two or three acres close to my mother’s house should do.”

He smiled, teeth pearly in the reflected light of her bedroom lamps. ”I can pay, of course, for all of it.” An inch. That was all he needed her to give. Peregrine was good at turning less into more.

”If you want proper greetings, Peregrine, you should come by proper channels.” Wretched man! His ego was more vast than his cursed Jewels! And his temperament reminded her of the cook’s toddler. It was really the worst combination, the absolute worst, and Solveig wondered sometimes just what Mother Night was thinking. Or if Peregrine was just the Darkness’ little joke on Glacia.

Closing her eyes, Solveig tipper her head back and swallowed. At least his boots were off her bed. Which she swept clean with a hearth witch’s bustling efficiency, but none of the warmth.

”No one is going to make you stay. You should know that by now.” She turned her desk chair around, dropping her reports on to the desk top before folding herself into the seat across from him. ”Those years are well over.” Even if he was obviously not over them. Solveig wasn’t sure she even wanted him lumbering around her court. Mostly she just wanted him to behave!

Solveig did not know how to ease whatever hurts Peregrine had suffered. He was never fully honest and rarely came close at all except to torment him. So she did the only thing that seemed right to her, and let him go. Over and over again she let him leave without anyone chasing after him. But that didn’t mean she didn’t remind him every time to behave. The damned wretch.

”You’re having a joke.” Solveig said blandly, hoping to the dark realm she was. But for all his smiling - smirking! - Peregrine seemed serious. Serious as he ever was, anyway. She say very square in her chair. Spine straight along the the cushioned back, feet flat on the floor in front of her. Counting backward, Solveig checked on every member of her court. Reminding herself that if the house exploded they would all die.

It was a very calming exercise.

”You want me to sell you good, arable land in exchange for your ill gotten marks, so that you can plant a foreign queen on it and make furniture for Kite’s stall?” It sounded ludicrous. But most things sounded like insanity with Peregrine, and that was often how he left Solveig feeling. One silvered eyebrow swooped upward. ”Does that mean you’re planning on retiring from whatever it is you get up to, Peregrine? Are you ready to swear fealty to Reric?” Not to Solveig. To the city.

Plus she knew he’d buck and balk and bawl if she even suggested such a thing. Another queen could be a boon, too. Especially if she was good with the land. Or even if she was the sort good at fondling the males into submission, since the Darkness knew Solveig never would be. Logic kept Solveig from telling him no outright. She didn’t want to subject her city to Peregrine as a permanent resident, but he came and went anyway, so she had to find a way to make it beneficial to her people.

Teeth flashing in a sneer Peregrine challenged Solveig’s statement. ”So you claim.” He was many things, and stupid might very well have been one of them. But he wasn’t that stupid. If the chance to cage him presented itself he knew they would try.

Felt it in the way his palms always sweat in the big cities. In the edge queens gave his psyche. Making his heart beat a tick too fast. Swallowing twice as much when they were near. His fingers worked up around the collar of his shirt. Loosening a button as if it had suddenly become too tight.

He couldn’t grudge them the Darkness given gift of bonding people to their service. Everything had a purpose. Peregrine was just determined not to let his purpose coincide with the needs of queens, not when he could help it. That axe could be ground anytime, though, and with any queen. Today his needs lined up with Solveig’s power to grant him what he needed.

”Yes, Solly, I came here, to the one place I hate most, to see you, the sort of person I like least, just so I could have a laugh.” Peregrine felt her Craft shifting above the depth of his Ebon-gray. Whatever she was doing it took her an excessively long time to form a better answer. Hands still around his own neck he rolled his thumbs over the knot in his throat. This was stupid. He should have sent Kite to buy the property.

Her question was met with a snide grin. ”What do you know about my marks, woman?” She acted as if his coins would taint the land. Ill gotten indeed. If he had been born anywhere else they would call him a trader. Glacia was just pissy they didn’t get their cut. It was their own fault.

Any further retort he might have had was lost in his throat. A harsh laugh the catalyst to sudden pacing. Fists stuffed into pockets, face half wild with bitter amusement. ”Of course, of fucking course.” You couldn’t trust a queen, not a single ounce. ”You just said the years of trying to make me stay were over now you want fealty. This place is never going to change.” Crackles of electricity made his curls stand tall with static. Temper bristling over the edges of his control. ”Why should I have to swear anything? I’m not asking to move into your damn house, or even the city proper. I don’t need your walls, I need the woods and a few good miles between us.”

He would never. Never! His loyalty was to himself. The city certainly had never cared what was best for Peregrine. It could burn to the ground without a pinch of pity from the warlord. Why should he have to give up anything to live on land that was sitting unused? ”If I was anyone else you’d be counting my marks over the signed deed. My business has nothing to do with a land sale. And it’s got nothing to do with you.” She just wanted to use him. He didn’t know what for, she was the stiffest bitch he’d ever met. But she was a queen, and that’s all they ever thought about.

And here he was about to live side by side with one. A spoiled little chit no less. He laughed again, at himself this time. The children would be worth it. Being their father would be worth it. ”Just sell me the land and forget the rest. I have shit to do and you’re so stuck up it makes my back ache.” He could almost feel sorry for the bonded fools couldn’t be without their precious lady.

She wondered if he would be over it, or if he would let the past dictate his temper forever. He’d been free for years. Scorning the city while haunting it. Solveig had half expected him to move his mother elsewhere, but he never had. He just kept coming back. ”Have I lied to you yet?” Solveig retorted. She was not a backhanded sort. She always charged from the front and never hid her intentions.

All she had ever asked was that he behave. And not track dirt into her house. She’d have to add putting his body on her bed to that list, arrogant wretch. Solveig shifted. Weight rolling into the balls of her feet as Peregrine worked his collar, not at all approving of him loosening buttons in her bedroom. He was just the sort to try it, his prowess at loveplay the only thing he seemed interested in tattooing on his body. But Peregrine made no advances, just looked decidedly uncomfortable, and unforgiving - as always.

Insulting her. Or trying. It did not hurt Solveig that he did not like her. Only frustrated her attempts to turn him into something more than a wastrel. Gripping the arms of her chair, Solveig squeezed, feeling the padding collapse beneath her fingertips and rise between her fingers. ”Enough, man.” She bit back, not in the least bit pleased with being addressed so. As if her sex was a degradation. Really, he knew no bounds! None at all! His boots suddenly violent on her floor boards as he swung up and began pacing.

The air turned violent, charged by his temper. Solveig spun a hasty shield around the room. It wouldn’t - couldn’t - stop his Ebon-grey, but it might give her people enough time to flee the house if he lost control. Too exposed sitting while he paced, Solveig stood too, stiff and disproving as he roamed her room. He was impossible! Wanting everything while giving nothing in return. As if she owed him somehow for some reason.

”I don’t want you in my house, Peregrine!” Solveig shouted over his ranting. She was damned sick of him saddling her with all his hurts! And taking it out on her city and her people. As if Reric were shit on his boot heel he needed scraped off. ”You want to own land in this city, you swear fealty like anyone else!” Solveig speared a finger in his direction. Had he been wandering so long he forgot how Glacia worked? They had to work together to survive. She’d sell no land to dead weight.

”If you leave scorch marks on my walls, Peregrine Runner, I will see your ship pulled apart board by board and used to warm my room for the rest of my reign,”she threatened as the air crackled. His hair stood away from his scalp, and her own tugged at the thick braid it had been bound into. ”You’re arrogance is boundless. Think you I am so desperate for you? I’ve no want for you, Peregrine, beyond your good behavior. You came to me, remember, when you could have gone to the sjef.” Who had better have demanded the same!

”You want Reric land, you make promises to Reric. You want to bring another mouth into my city, you make sure she earns her ration.” Solveig snapped at him, cheeks flushed and eyes wild. He was so damn frustrating! Always with the wailing and gnashing of teeth! He was like a dog over a bone, wanting to show it off but afraid someone would snatch it from him. ”I am not asking you to serve me, you idiot. I’m telling you that any land you buy must be properly tended, and you’ll damn well serve Reric if you’re going live here off the fat of my land and my work!” She would have shook him, if she could have done so without touching him. Tall enough to not be intimidated by his height. Dark enough in Jewel and well used to deal with him that Solveig worried less about his Ebon-grey than maybe she should have.

A sharpness entered Peregrine’s eye. Just the left one. It’s corner narrowing lazily so that he looked dubious in the most arrogant sort of way. It nearly hid the flash of cleverness underneath. He was no fool. Let the world assume what they would. ”No. But only because the absence of truth isn’t necessarily a lie.”

Queens! Always trying to trick you up with words. Talk you into circles or corners so that they could have their way. At least that was his experience of them. When they weren’t outright using treachery to try bonding him to their sides. With Solveig it was always about his “behavior”. And her ideals of what was well mannered against what was not.

Some people might have settled for being thankful he didn’t blow their damned city off the map. Or silent since he had never been shy about dealing in Reric first. Contributions to the economy ought to have been worth a bit of respect. But no. He dealt in goods others wouldn’t transport- not legally, and sometimes took things from slower ships. So of course his marks were all ‘ill gotten’ and worth less than the average to this queen.

With her pale hair and frigid eyes. It made his stomach hurt. The warring drive to throw a blanket over her and the screaming instinct to run before she sank claws into his spine. ”Do they? Do you make each and every person that wants a plot of land make vows?” He challenged, adding an insult since he thought she was just controlling enough for the answer to be yes, ”Because that would be lunacy. You’ve never been the time wasting sort. Up until now. Look me in the eye and say you’re not asking an ounce more of me than you do every man that wants to expand land he already owns here.”

He wouldn’t let her forget that he’d lived his entire life in Reric. Travels aside most of his time had been spent here. You could see the sjefholme from his mother’s second story window. The house was only a few miles outside of their damn wall. He and Kite had played in the schoolyard, raced the ship shadows and climbed the rooftops like every other boy. No one had demanded he swear fealty then. No. Not until he had refused to fit into the city’s plans. Then they started to make a villain out of him. So he left the city to its fate, but he had never acted against it either. Not even to rob one of their ships. The thought twice as bitter as she brought his own up.

”Is that supposed to frighten me?” If anything it only incited another crackle of his power. The nerve! She really did believe everything belonged to her. Lips working up into a snarl he returned the threat. ”You wouldn’t find it to try. And if you did, it wouldn’t fucking matter. I’m a carpenter. I’ll build a dozen more and hand them out like candy to every territory queen in every fucking Realm. Then I’ll get the bitches to suck me off in exchange for flying lessons.” He had the skills to do it too, if not the ability to be quite that petty. Or to woo every ruling queen. Not that he wouldn’t try, or have a fair shot (or so he thought). They taught him to fly hoping he would love it enough to conform. Instead they had just given him the surest means of maintaining his freedom.

”My arrogance?” He pointed at himself, finger sharp to this chest. Knees bent so he was at her eye level, though there were not many inches between them to start. Then he was on, pacing again. Laughig because she was trying her best to turn the scenario around on him once again. But he wouldn’t let her. No! He wasn’t going to be her fool. ”I came here with marks and a fair deal to work out. You’re the one acting like you know where my money comes from. Assuming the worst, and tacking on unreasonable conditions that you wouldn’t put on anyone else. If I’m arrogant, than you’re the damn bleeding Queen of it.”

There was no love between Peregrine and the sjef, or any member of Reric’s government. If he had gone that route they would have had the guards on his ass by now. It was clear Solveig had been the wrong choice too. Maybe just Reric in general. ”Well then FUCK Reric!” He told her, boot shedding dirt as he stomped it on the floor. Pacing stopped and chest pointed to the door. Insulted that she would insinuate his people would need her to keep themselves fed. ”I take care of my own. I’ve always taken care of them. We don’t need Reric, we just choose to deal here first. I’ve no problem changing that, I get more marks when I sell farther north anyway.” There was plenty of land in Glacia. And farther flung places if that was what it came to.

He nearly left then. And he probably should have. But she called him names and spewed more of her misconstrued views. Stopping him at the door, knob caught between his fingers when he turned back to keep arguing. ”That’s the real fucking problem with queens. They only see things the way they want to see them.” Properly tended! She just wanted to see him living in the dirt. A sad little farmer since that life was enough for most. It wasn’t enough for him. ”I would be Iris’s pet before I’d serve a heartless ingrate like you. If I buy the land I’ll use it as I please. That’s the point of making it my property. If you can’t suck up your ego and expectations enough to let me live my life freely then I’ll take my dirty money to Stavangar, or Fyrkat. They’ll be glad to have it, glad to have me lose interest in their ships, and they’ll be glad for the trade goods I bring too.”

He was an idiot. Thinking he could make a safe place for his family in a city so bitterly against his very existence. Shame it felt so much like home. ”Fucking queens.” He whispered under his breath. Fingers raking through the static in his hair to smooth it. ”I swear to Mother Night if this baby is one I’m killing myself.” He would find somewhere else since Solveig couldn’t be reasonable. ”I hope you catch an emotion and die of the shock.” He told the queen over his shoulder, probes racing the path he intended to leave by. Making sure none of her guards or that idiot Hugo were lurking in wait to block the way.

”You are impossible!” The strident tone of her voice shocked her. Damn Peregrine! He always upset everything when he came. Solveig, her court, sometimes he had the city in a frenzy depending on what he and his brother got up to in it. Mother Night why could he never behave! And he was always accusing her of something. Anything! Hell bent on holding on to old wounds.

Solveig’s hands expanded upon her frustration. Cutting the air in emphasis, as if she were measuring his impossibility and her frustration with it. Massive. His ego was a whale Solveig had no patience with.

”You are not any other man, Peregrine! As well you like to crow until it comes time to pay.” His Jewels set him apart. Only one of them was strong enough to subdue him, but Eydis was strangely silent on the subject. Maybe Solveig would appeal to her again. Beg help in making this disaster she’d inherited behave. ”I’m not asking oaths to me, or service to me, Peregrine. Just honor to the damn city! The one that houses your family and makes sure they do not do without!”

He was going to burn her house down, never mind her wallpaper. Solveig wanted it evacuated. A Thread spearing the house from her room to the cellar. Everyone out. It was a defeat, but she would rather live with shame than guilt.

”Peregine!” He wouldn’t dare. He wouldn’t be allowed. Such filth from his mouth! Traitorous filth, never mind all that... Solveig’s eyes narrowed over pink cheeks. ”You should have more care with such threats. Even you can’t stand against every squad in Glacia.” And they would all turn on him to keep the secret, Solveig was very sure. There was no give in him! She asked fealty for the city he wanted to live and work in and they came this!

”I asked one damn thing of you! Hardly more than I’d ask of anyone talking of kidnapping queens and installing them as refugees in my city. Someone who has always been an unknowable quantity!” He was more fickle than the weather! Worse behaved than the cook’s toddler. He drove Solveig crazy! She met him, eye to eye, temper to temper. She wasn’t afraid of him, even though she was afraid of what he could do. She was too damn tired of all his shit to be afraid.

”Fuck you back!” Solveig shouted. Why did it always come to this? ”Then go sell farther north, you arrogant prick.” Let them deal with his bad temper. They could survive without his scraps. And she didn’t want whatever else he brought in on his ship in her city anyway. Damn it! Damn him! ”And you don’t? Clinging to all your hurts and skewing everything to suit your wounded pride. You’re a great big wailing baby, Peregrine Runner. And Irisviel Crag can have you, if she’s idiot enough to welcome you to her court.” Good riddance!

Good fucking riddance! Solveig squared her jaw, face turning away from him as she tried to work her temper down from high boil to a simmer. Stared hard at the mud he left on her rug until it broke apart into dust, craft churning beneath her anger, controlled only enough to not harm people. Mud was always her enemy.

Would they hate her for his loss? The people who enjoyed the goods Peregrine brought? Stavangar and Fyrkat would probably thank her. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!

”Wait, what baby?” She couldn’t lose him. Peregrine belonged to Reric. He’d been a part of the city longer than she had. The prodigal son. Mother Night. ”Peregrine!” Solveig stalked after him. They would demote her and send her home to Odense in utter shame if she drove him completely away. Especially if there was a baby. Was it with this queen? Mother Night. Fuckfuckfuck. ”Would you stop, you great big ass!” Desperate, Solveig reached out and grabbed him tight at the arm.

”You’re having a baby?” How could anyone let that happen? He needed to be a father like Glacia needed another cold season.

Like a woman possessed Solveig abused the empty space in front of her. Peregrine was afraid of her Jewels, and he liked watching her flail. It was good for her to be unsettled. That stone carved face moving in any sort of emotion. He was glad it was frustration though. The sooner she wanted to be rid of him the sooner she would give him what he wanted.

”But I’m still entitled the rights of any other!” He argued. Coasting right over the truth in her words. He didn’t want to be just any other man. If that were the case he would be a simple carpenter. Or he would broken for the blooded wine the last queen had tried to trick him with. Become the tool, the weapon, they had hoped to mold his Ebon-gray into. ”Honor it? What do I owe this place?” No one had stood up for him when he begged to go home. All those years spent running and any nag in the window that saw him would point the way for the guards. Not an ounce of pity for a boy that didn’t want to be a fighter. ”I deal fairly with Reric, and I never touch her sky ships. That’s more than I give for anyplace else. Why isn’t that enough?”

He didn’t think anyone else gave more. Eyes rolling in his head he listened the alarm thread she bathed her house in. ”You’re so dramatic. Mother Night! I’m not going to kill anyone, Solveig.” They didn’t deserve it. Not this time. That was the basis of his moral code and general outlook. As long as they weren’t keeping him from what he needed, he wasn’t out to hurt anyone on purpose. Sometimes people got in the way, or made bad decisions that left them in the wrong place at the wrong time. You got whatever fate you stood there and accepted.

”Solveig.” He said back, dripping in sarcasm. He didn’t care! If she was really pissed off now. They were passed the point of working things out. And he wouldn’t let her win. ”No not every squad,” He admitted. Not now that he had children counting on a father to be there. But no one had to know that. Solveig least of all. ”but I could put one Hell of a dent in them before they brought me down.”

That was just raw fact. He ignored the stinging claws in his chest that whispered they would do it too. Proud young men ready to die just because their queens willed it so. They wanted that for Peregrine. If it had ever been in him to serve, the pressure to serve only in the way that suited the queen had murdered the instinct. Now he was just plagued with the occasional itch for his scalp to get scratched. Or to toss warming spells around women that looked chilly.

He took it out on the virgins. They loved that shit.

”One thing? Are we having the same conversation?” She was nuts! There was no other way to explain it. Mocking her voice he paraphrased the bits of their fight that suited the moment. ”Retiring Peregrine, the land needs proper tending! Swear fealty Reric while you’re at it. I only want your complete and utter loyalty. I’d ask nearly the same of almost anyone else.” Nostrils wide he snorted, voice back to normal as he tacked on one more retort. ”Bronwyn begged me to take her out of Dena Nehele. The place is in shambles, she’s starving to death! And I’m not a damn puzzle. What harm have I brought to Reric to deserve its suspicion?”

So there had been that one, small warehouse fire. He had paid for the damages! And he was sure the incidents with other cities were only half his fault, Reric’s official ships turned to piracy just as often as peregrine. She just wanted an angle to manipulate him from. Damn his ego for keeping his mouth moving. Falling into the trap of giving away too much.

He was losing his mind, too much time around madwomen. ”You wish,” Any witch but this one. Well. Maybe this one too. Rough sex did wonders for snobby chits. ”you probably need an orgasm to knock that stick out of your ass.” Now that he knew the house was nearly empty he enjoyed the yelling. The sound of electricity crackling. It stung, and he would have burns on his arms in all the places it touched. But he couldn’t stop. That was as tame as it could be while he was this worked up. It helped him stay grounded and off the Killing Field, at least. ”You don’t know shit about hurts, Solveig. You’re a pompous little queen that’s never been anything but loved. You don’t know. And you couldn’t produce the emotion to understand if you did.” The Green on a queen was a joy and a blessing. But a Sapphire in a boy’s hand was marked as trouble waiting to happen. Everyone had been afraid of the weight behind his Jewel.

He would go to Stavangar first. They were allies with Reric and most likely to take him in. his mind raced. Would Kirsi come? That was a lot more distance than Meols to Reric. His mother would not. He would have to leave her behind. Kite? Starling? It was unfair to ask them to leave the only home they knew. Stomach rumbling he made it halfway down the hall before she caught up to him. Arm swinging away from the static that rose around her touch he groaned. ”What? What do you want from me? I can’t.” He was railing at the world more than at Solly. Hands thrown up in desperation. ”I have nothing else to give. Marks, Solveig. I came with marks. If that’s not enough then fuck it.”

With a sigh he calmed, small fingerprints lingering on the smooth skin of his forearm. Pulse heavy in the wrist they had touched. ”Yes. I fucked this queen like an idiot and now she says this baby is mine. And if its true I have to take care of them, Solly. I have to put them somewhere safe, because there’s other shit that… just… I have a lot going on.” She couldn’t understand. She couldn’t. He’d seen Solveig through the first year of her rule. The girl didn’t have a lick of emotion in her!

”Oh please, you take more than your fair share rights.” He took liberties, is what Peregrine took. Broke all the laws he liked and then cried about the unfairness of his treatment. Insufferable. Children had more damn sense than this man. Solveig huffed. ”How kind of you, but if you want to settle roots here you have to do the same as others. Assurances must be had, Peregrine.” Solveig bristled, jaw set as she look at him.

”I’ll not trust their lives to your word.” Or his control. And certainly not Solveig’s ability to bring him to heel. She’d been shouting at Peregrine Runner for years to no avail. Nothing worked. Not kindness, not honest, and not crawling through the mud with him to sling tempers back and forth. He did what he pleased, and sometimes what he did not if it would spite her, Solveig suspected.

”Your pride is bigger than your Jewels, I see.” So was his hatred for her. He would destroy so many and so much for the idea of his freedom. Freedom she wasn’t even trying to strip from him! It took the chill from her anger. What sort of man could he possibly be? What had been done to turn him so flippantly from the lived of others? Nothing was worth anything to Peregrine but himself and his precious freedom.

”I asked if you were retiring, Peregrine. I did not demand it of you. And the land does need tending, you fool.” This was why Solveig took every new member of her household for a long walk through the inner workings. So they could see that warmth and food and security did not just appear through ether. It was nurtured by craft and sweat and blood. ”You’re a pirate, Peregrine, why would we not be suspicious of you?” Dena Nehele?! Mother Night someone was letting him through a Dark Gate.

Solveig wanted to scream. And set every damn altar on fire so that he couldn’t go rushing off wherever he pleased.

”Yes, yes. We all know no one but Peregrine has ever been sad!” Solveig snapped. ”Or maybe the rest of us just don’t go taking all our hurt out on everyone else.” Her sex life she would not discuss with him. Not even in anger would she rush to that bait. She didn’t bombard him with the wounds of her own heart either, to prove him wrong. Because Solveig did not take her pain out on others. She took responsibility for her own damn curse.

That didn’t mean she didn’t feel it. But Solveig was used to that too. Everyone forgot there was a person wearing her caste and Jewels. She wished she could do so as easily. Maybe she did not feel things as keenly as others did. Solveig did not know, able only to experience her own life. Perhaps she lacked some key to unlock whatever it was Peregrine needed from her to make him behaved. Solveig would just have to keep trying best as she knew how. Even if that left her fingertips stinging. Static racing up her arm to pull her hair upward at the roots.

Her braid sprouted a thousand tentacles. But Peregrine stopped. Stopped and told her what he really needed, finally. Not land, not really. He needed somewhere safe to put a child.

”Oh you great big idiot.” Solveig chided, voice soft and warm. ”Of course you have to.” He’d always been very hung up on family. Solveig recalled the conversation she’d had with Hugo not long ago. Yes. Trying to keep his sister probably would have gone poorly. Decision made, Solveig did not pry. ”Alright. You can have your land and you refugee papers. I can’t help you with the stall, however. You have to go through official channels for that.” Solveig stepped back and wiped her fingers on her thighs.

She hated touching. Her skin always felt thick afterward. False and not her own. This time they stung a little, which was better than that strange sleeping sensation she often suffered after contact.

”Anything worth farming will still need farmed, you understand? I don’t care how it gets done, so long as it does.” Solveig turned around and headed back into her room, pulling open a desk drawer to get the papers out. ”And all queens are required to help as they can, even yours.” Peregrine with a queen. She almost laughed. Instead, Solveig singed her mark into the papers and handed them over. ”Come back tomorrow, by the front door, Peregrine, and see my Steward. He’ll have a selection of land for you to pick then.” She wouldn’t mention fealty again.

Hopefully housing his offspring would be enough. Mother Night. He would be a terrible father.

”Not by much, but we can measure if you insist.” Peregrine warned, knowing Solveig was right. It didn’t bother him, because his Jewels were big enough to back it up that limitless ego. Why should he reign it in? Man to man few could match him, and of those likely none could catch him.

Another snort as she tried to cover the original intent of her words. ”And what reason could you possibly have for asking if you weren’t trying to apply would be necessary? Farmland needs tending, Solveig. I’m not trying to start up a homestead. Just build a damn house.” His mother and sister were not the sort to mind a garden, and he had no plans of growing crops. He bought those things like the hundreds of others city dwellers who had no talent for such. Though he suspected if produce became that scarce he and Kite would do alright hunting. Kite would at least, he had a father who taught him that shit.

”Aye, I’m a pirate. A pirate that lives in Reric, which means I don’t go poaching off her ships. You’ve pirates of your own, too, don’t pretend your sky crews haven’t taken what doesn’t belong to them. Every squad in Glacia has done it.” It came around to the real root of everyone’s problem with Peregrine. He did it to serve himself, instead of their preconceived notions of the greater good.

It didn’t matter. Let them hate him! He hoped Solveig hated him most of all. Even if she did look like she need bent over the bed. If she preferred to leave her aching on the inside where it could fester then that was her prerogative. Peregrine let it out. Then used the scars as evidence and reminder as to why he couldn’t trust anyone but himself.

They hadn’t listened to how they were hurting him then, though, so he didn’t expect Solveig to listen now. He ranted like a madman instead. If Kirsi could see him just then, he could practically hear her cackling. How the tables had turned. There would be Hell to pay with Starling too. The minute she heard about this mess she’d nail him to the wall for a verbal lashing.

Maybe he wouldn’t go home at all.

He would decide after. Right then he had the strangest thing to watch. Solveig going all gooey. He stared at her with his eyebrows wrinkling towards one another. What in the name of Mother Night had come over her? Suspicious of the sudden victory he stepped back to glare down his nose at her. The queen just dusted her hand off as if he had been covered in slime instead of a thin sheen of sweat. Weird ass woman.

”If Kite wants it bad enough he can suck up his shyness and come make the deal himself.” Peregrine lied. He’d have done it if Kite had asked. But he had never spoken about wanting any such thing. Who would run a stall anyway? They were gone as much as they were home. The thought hadn’t seemed to occur to Solveig yet.

Peregrine was chuffed. Licking his lips to keep a smile from spreading. He had expected to whittle the deal down to an acre or less. Now he was getting as much as he could afford, and the convenience of safely totting Winnie out of Dena Nehele too. She had better be ready with that hungry mouth when he got back. All this shit to see her happy. ”She’s not mine, I’m just housing the mother of my child. If she doesn’t do what you need her to do then you do what you must about it.” How was it fair to make him responsible for Winnie’s behavior when she was her own woman?

Shadowing Solveig’s steps he posted up against the doorway while she rummaged through her desk. ”I’ve a house to build, so I need land with enough trees for that. They’ll take time to clear before the soil can even be evaluated. Seasons off from being farmable, if it’s even worthwhile- in which case I’ll put a tenant farmer there.” Ages away from worrying about any of that. But Solveig liked to judge him, so hearing that he had a plan would unbunch that twist in her panties.

”I’ll be around in the morning. Your Steward won’t care what door, or window, I use.” He promised the second she held the paper out for him to take. Their contents skimmed for any cruel tricks before he vanished them. ”See, all those dramatics for what, Solveig? Wasn’t so hard in the end was it.” Before he tossed his shields up again he blew her a kiss. Happy enough he could have skipped down the hall if he weren’t a man grown.

Instead he slipped in close before Solveig could slip away. Pecking her cheek and stealing a whiff of her hair. "Thanks." Then just as easily as he had come he was gone again.

Solveig made a frustrated sound, cheeks billowing outward in her annoyance. It was like arguing in circles. Round and round they went until Peregrine was dizzy with anger over things he’d concocted himself. Assumptions and guesses and wild speculations fueled by a suspicion too deep her to dare dipping her toes in.

”Fine!” She snapped. ”Kite can go through the official channels then.” It was his stall anyway. Mother Night these brothers! Solveig was half a mind to outlaw them both just to save herself the trouble of them. But she doubted anyone else could do better and worried they would do worse. Plus some were strangely attached to the nuisances. Just as she couldn’t let them abandon the city, she couldn’t kick them out of it either.

She could dream of peace though.

”How gallant of you.” Solveig snorted. He was disgusting. Wondering if the mother of his child knew what she’d signed up for, Solveig felt some pity for her. But not much. She’d picked Peregrine after all, to bed and make a child with. Solveig couldn’t think of anyone worse. She’d rather a kennel of untrained mutts than that. And she liked children.

”You’ll do as needed with whatever parcel you choose.” She was not concerned with which so long as it was well kept. ”However you see it done, so long as its legal and properly tended, I don’t care.” And she would be checking too, he better be sure of that. Solveig was overzealous in the care of her land. Her Steward would be sure the city got a good cut of the profits too. Especially since Peregrine had so much extra income.

”You’ll use the door, Peregrine.” Eyes hard, silver mirrors that reflected his smirk back at him. If he wanted to do business in her house he would use the damn door. ”Ass.” She hissed at him. He was the dramatic baby! Her eyes rolled at his air kissing, arms settling defensively across her chest. Solveig watched him dissolve in a glimmer, sight shields to see how out as he’d come in.

She was turning when he caught her. Lips brushing her cheek, the sound of his sniffing in her ear. Solveig swung at him, slapping the intrusion away. Lip curled in disgust she wiped her cheek with the back of her wrist. And then that on her skirt.

”The door, Peregrine!” She shouted down the hallway, sinking back into her chair. Solveig’s long legs stretched out in front of her as she pulled her half unraveled, static filled braid loose and dropped her head back against the chair. With her Green she sought out Hugo, to be sure everyone had cleared the house safely, and to let him know they could all come back in now. *He’s gone again, thank the Darkness.* Too bad it wasn’t permanently.

Welcome to Witchlight

We are an AU Black Jewels RPG that is continuously expanding the world lore to truly make it our own. Come join us and play in our sandbox!

Open for over a year, we have 9 unique races, from birds to wolf-shifters. Feel free to drop into our Discord, lurk our wanted ads, and see if Witchlight is the fantasy site you should always have been looking for.

Chat

Wanted Spotlight

Rumor Mill

Credits

Witchlight is loosely based upon the Black Jewels Series by Anne Bishop though it has been adapted and expanded by our members. All lore, characters, and writing belongs to the members. Site graphics & custom codes were created by the staff. A special thanks to Wolf & Katarina for all their help with the planning of Witchlight and the writing of the base lore.